Dark Lords of Praemor

The Villain Game

Praemor

The kingdom of Praemor has long been ruled by its tyrannical king Ossiraekes the First, an immortal wizard of fearsome power and blackest heart. A victim of poor soil, arid winds, and a shortage of natural resources, the people of Praemor manage to subsist on a combination of light agriculture, fishing, animal husbandry, and trade. Horses of Praemish stock are in high demand across Aeheler, known for their endurance and speed.

Histories state that Ossiraekes was the rightful heir of Praemor, born a few minutes before his twin, but his father was suspicious of Ossiraeke’s magical genius and wished his warrior son to inherit, rather than the scrawny wizard; he underestimated Ossiraeke’s magical might. On his eighteenth birthday, already an accomplished mage, Ossiraekes murdered his father and brother and took the throne of Praemor as his own. Since then, he has ruled his kingdom harsh unconcern, subtly destroying any noble family with any capability to threaten him.

Oddly, Ossiraekes’s reign has largely been a peaceful one, with the exception of a short war with Thartaenor shortly after he assumed the throne, one hundred and eighty three years ago, a crusade launched by paladins of the Glory Bringer, and a few scattered border conflicts that never amounted to much in large scale warfare. Although raiders and bandits from Praemor were not an uncommon sight in Thartaenor and Sevtown, they were largely considered to be a local problem.

All of this changed when nine months ago, when Ossiraekes mobilized his armies and marched against the forces of Thartaenor without warning or provocation. After conquering the capital city of Thartaenor, Thartaen’s Triumph, the armies of Ossiraekes move against the broken remnants of Thartaenor. The nations of the Heartlands are holding their breath, awaiting to see what the immortal wizard-king’s next move will be.

Since Ossiraekes does not care about the conventions of other nation’s laws or morality, Praemor serves as a sanctuary for people and monsters that would be hunted elsewhere. The wizard king only cares how useful these people are to his maintaining and extending his rule; as such, his armies are bolstered by a large amount of unsavory folk. Demon and devil worshipers, necromancers, crazed heretics, assassins, and worse all now call Praemor home.